


control

by youcouldmakealife



Series: always in tandem [50]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 19:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18079322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “You haven’t been coming out,” Robbie says, voice bland, after a game, and Georgie doesn’t know how he feels about him bringing it up. Doesn’t know what Robbie means by it, whether he’s pointing it out because he wants him to come around more, or just to rub in Georgie’s face he knows why Georgie’s made himself scarce. Could be both. Could want him around more to better rub it in his face.Georgie shrugs, tries to make it look loose. “Haven’t been feeling it,” he says.





	control

Ted keeps coming around.

It’s not every time the Caps go out after a home game, not even most times, no more than any of the Caps would bring his girlfriend, his wife, but it’s enough to be noticeable. And not just noticeable to Georgie — if anyone hadn’t picked up that Robbie was dating Ted when he started coming out after games, well. They’ve figured it out. Georgie makes a point of not listening when he hears Robbie’s name come up among teammates. He doesn’t trust himself not to do something about it if it comes out negatively, and he knows Robbie wouldn’t thank him for that. Knows Robbie would hate him for that, not that he needs another excuse.

None of the Terriers knew about them, not really. Some of them may have had a bit of a suspicion, but while Robbie and Georgie were a little more co-dependent than the average D-pair, a little more physically affectionate, hockey players in general don’t have all that many boundaries with one another, so most of them probably dismissed it as a particularly strong bromance, not an actual relationship.

If Robbie had asked him to, Georgie would have told every single one of them. He would have let everyone know. If Robbie had even _hinted_. But Robbie didn’t want that, not back then, and Georgie doesn’t know what’s different. Maybe Robbie’s priorities have changed. Maybe Ted’s just worth it.

He’s worried the media’s going to pick it up. He hopes Robbie’s mom already knows he has a boyfriend. She probably knows. Maybe not his dad, but honestly, fuck his dad. Every time Robbie was around his dad he got angry, and small, and that sounds like the sort of thing Robbie would joke about, ‘I’m always small and angry, that’s kind of my thing’, but Georgie doesn’t mean it that way. 

He hated Robbie’s father before he even met him, just from the tone in Robbie’s voice whenever he mentioned him, and meeting him didn’t change his mind. Meeting him as Robbie’s boyfriend — he doesn’t think he’s ever hated anyone as much as he hated Robbie’s father that night. Maybe Ted. Georgie fucking hates Ted.

Ted’s never said a word to him. Georgie’s pretty sure Robbie’s steering Ted away from him on purpose. Ted hasn’t done a single thing.

Georgie hates him so much.

*

Georgie finds himself at home, at loose ends. Another early night because someone decided to make a cameo — _fuck_ Ted — and everything in him is itchy. He wants a drink right now, another, another after that, wants something harder than the beers in his fridge, wants to go out and pick someone up and fuck them in the bathroom, wants to go back to the bar and fuck Ted up, wants Robbie to _look_ at him again, even if it’s with anger, even if it’s with hatred.

There’s a gym by Georgie’s place, and after he bought a day pass a few times because he didn’t feel like working out surrounded by teammates, he ended up cracking and buying an annual one. He goes there that night, because it seems like the least destructive thing he could do. Cycles probably too hard, and only takes himself home when his legs feel like rubber, when he’s so tired even the itchy feeling has gone dull at the edges.

He starts going a lot, actually, leaves the bar after a drink or two, as soon as he can make an exit that isn’t conspicuous. Not that the Caps pay much attention to him generally. There are probably worse habits than hitting the exercise bike after a few drinks. It’s not like he’s doing it drunk, or going all that hard after the first time, just enough to get his blood pumping, get himself out of his head, hopefully make it a little easier to sleep after he hits the sheets, because that’s been a problem for — that’s been a problem basically since after college, honestly, once he stopped hitting them drunk enough that sleep came easy.

He’d expect to be the only one there, considering he tends to show up at midnight the earliest, but there’s a woman who looks around his age that’s there more often than not when he is, and Georgie gives her a nod when he comes in during her workout, gets a nod from her when she’s the one who comes in after. A silent ‘I have no idea why the fuck you’re working out past midnight, but no judgment from me’. He starts to look forward to it, almost, wonders where she is if she doesn’t show, wonders if she thinks the same thing when he’s on the road.

Eventually he skips the invites entirely when they’re at home. It probably isn’t hard to put together the fact that he leaves early whenever Robbie’s boyfriend swings by, at least if you’re someone aware of the situation, like Elliott or David or, fuck, Robbie. It’s not like he’s missed much anyway. Things are better than they were his first season with the Caps, and no one, not even Robbie, anymore, is actively hostile, but he’s never going to click with them, fit in in the room the way he did with the Terriers, or even the Barons, though that wasn’t exactly an ideal case either. 

“You haven’t been coming out,” Robbie says, voice bland, after a game, and Georgie doesn’t know how he feels about him bringing it up. Doesn’t know what Robbie means by it, whether he’s pointing it out because he wants him to come around more, or just to rub in Georgie’s face he knows why Georgie’s made himself scarce. Could be both. Could want him around more to better rub it in his face.

Georgie shrugs, tries to make it look loose. “Haven’t been feeling it,” he says. 

“Coming out tonight?” Robbie asks, and it sounds like an invitation, or maybe Georgie only hopes it is.

They’re in NYC. NYC is a Ted-free zone, presumably.

“Sure,” Georgie says, gets tipsy that night, not with Robbie — not sitting beside him, not _with_ him at all, any more than anyone else here is — but in his orbit. Robbie’s goading the rookie to drink, and the look on Rafael’s face when he tries Jager for presumably the first time is pretty priceless. He refuses to accept anything else Robbie hands him after that, keeps protesting he’s underage, and Georgie takes pity on the kid, buys him a vodka cran, minus the vodka, lets that be their secret. He knows the pressure rookies get, remembers night after night he’d be getting drinks handed to him when he shouldn’t have. It’s funny to get the rookies drunk, he guesses. It’s hard to say no, too, when you’re in a bar with guys older than you, presumably wiser, trying to fit in on your team.

It’s not an excuse. Georgie’s not saying it like an excuse.

He has one too many that night, probably, and he’s not making excuses for that either, but at least that time he doesn’t do anything he regrets.

*

They get back to Washington, and he skips the bar entirely after the game. It’s a loss, so there won’t be that many people going out anyway. Robbie may be there, may not, who knows. Georgie skips his warm-down at Verizon too, just changes into sweats and a t-shirt and parks in his driveway, walks to the gym to do it there. Something settles when he steps inside, before he even does anything, like there’s something in his body that needs to be sated with exhaustion, knows he’ll keep it quiet tonight, let it sleep.

His fellow middle of the nighter comes in when he’s just started to work up a sweat, nods at him and disappears into the women’s dressing room, takes the treadmill about ten feet from his exercise bike. She usually has headphones in her ears, but she doesn’t tonight, and when he finishes — no wobbly legs, not even the slightly pleasant soreness, they play tomorrow and he needs to conserve his energy — he pauses before he heads out, feels like it’s weird to keep sharing space with someone and not even know their name. 

“Hey,” he says, when he passes by her treadmill, and she hits stop. “No need for that, I just figured I should say hi since we see each other here all the time.”

“I was almost done anyway,” she says. “Hi, fellow night owl.”

“Georgie,” he says. 

“Melissa,” she says, holds her hand out. Her handshake’s firmer than he would have expected. “I’m a bartender, if you were about to ask why the hell I’m here at one in the morning. You? Night shift or insomnia?”

“I’m an athlete,” Georgie says. “So.”

“So middle of the night workout sessions?” Melissa asks.

“I work out during the day too,” Georgie says.

“So just obsessive workout sessions,” Melissa says.

Georgie shrugs. “It helps me sleep.”

“Fair enough,” she says. “I usually get off at eleven, come in after my shifts. Nice to have the place to myself. Or, it was.”

“Sorry,” Georgie says.

“Nah, you’re okay,” Melissa says. “We have a good ‘silent middle of the night nod’ thing going.”

“That I totally just ruined,” Georgie says.

Melissa shrugs. “Like I said, I was pretty much done my workout anyway, so it’s not like you interrupted anything.”

“Well,” Georgie says. “I’m heading out, so, insert silent middle of the night nod goodbye.”

“See you around, Georgie,” Melissa says, and they do. They still do the silent middle of the night nod whenever the other comes in, but generally, if Georgie finishes up first, he lingers until she’s done, and he’s noticed she does the same. It’s nice. Companionable. They talk about the Wizards season, which is going less than optimally, her job — she works at a bar the Caps have gone to at least a few times, but thankfully not lately, though it sounds like she’d be finished her shifts by the time they got in anyway. His job, in vague terms, mostly as an explanation for why he doesn’t show up on any regular basis. He doesn’t want her to know he’s a Capital. He’s not sure why. Maybe because he knows, from experience, she’ll inevitably treat him differently, good or bad, and he likes the thing they’ve got going right now. She’s the first friend he’s made in this city that doesn’t play hockey, and he kind of wants to hold onto that for awhile.

“Meet anyone new?” his mom asks at the usual point during the usual call.

“I have a new workout buddy,” Georgie says. “Does that count?”

She’s quiet for a second. “Sure,” she says. “Of course.”

“Then I guess I did,” he says.

“Is he cute?” mom asks after a pause.

“Mom!” Georgie says.

“I’m just asking!” she says.

“She,” Georgie says. “And I don’t know, I’m not looking for anything.”

“So she isn’t cute,” she says.

“She’s cute,” Georgie admits, then, “I’m really not looking for anything, mom. It’d be nice just to have a friend right now.”

“You’re right,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

Georgie waits. He knows what’s coming.

“How cute is she?” she asks.

“Put dad on,” Georgie says. 

“Not until you tell me!” she says.

“I’ll tell him you’re meddling again!” Georgie says. Will’s apparently just put in a formal complaint because mom keeps asking about one of his friends, despite Will’s insistent protests that they’re just friends. Georgie is 99% sure they’re banging and Will’s just not ready for her to meet the family yet. Who could blame him.

Robbie met the family early. Robbie met the family before it was a ‘meet the family’ kind of deal. They already loved him by the time he met them as Georgie’s boyfriend. 

Robbie’s not fucking relevant, and Georgie needs to start remembering that, but it’s practically impossible to excise a person from your memories when you see them almost every single day. Harder, probably, when you’re not even really trying to.

Georgie calls his sports therapist that night, too many drinks in, gets voicemail, leaves a message saying, he doesn’t even know what. It’s not that he’s blackout drunk or anything, he just doesn’t know how to string things together right now, put the words in an order that makes sense to him, to anyone else. Daniel calls him back in the morning, sounds concerned, offers to arrange a Skype session for that very minute, but Georgie has practice and a headache and he doesn’t even remember why he was so upset the night before.

“Tonight, then,” Daniel says, firm, and doesn’t budge when Georgie tries to head him off.

Georgie’s distracted, off in practice, but he hopes no one notices. Robbie must, because it’s affecting their drills, but he doesn’t say anything, at least. He keeps trying to think of things that’ll get Daniel off his back, disarm him. The word ‘blip’ comes into it a lot. He doesn’t want to say he had too much to drink, but he thinks it’ll come up anyway. He’ll just. Blip in the radar. A bad night. People have those. People can’t be judged for having those.

It’s harder than he thought it would be, looking at the slightly grainy image of Daniel’s face and pretending everything’s fine. He has practice in it, but maybe it’s just been too long. He let things get bottled up, and now he doesn’t know how to keep the smile on. Blip in the radar, though. A bad night.

“I don’t have control of a single thing in my entire life,” Georgie says. Starting and ending with himself, apparently, because he didn’t mean to say that. Didn’t even know he was going to until it was out his mouth, and Georgie’s not the kind of person who just blurts things out, but maybe he is now. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really know himself very well, it seems like sometimes.

Daniel’s quiet. “Then let’s find something you can be in control of,” he says. “Okay?”

Georgie blows out a breath. 

“Okay?” Daniel repeats.

“Yeah,” Georgie says. “Okay.”


End file.
